To further define that statement and lay groundwork for my hypothesis, first I need to identify who is “us” and who is “them.” The “us” and “them” I’m referring to are the politically informed and the uninformed. And since I’m writing this piece, I get to define the subtexts that qualify an individual as one or the other. Certainly, I’m working within dictionary definitions, but will further define the methods one may use to become informed. Here’s the dictionary definition (from MSN Encarta online) of informed:
1. Having enough information to understand something: having sufficient and sufficiently reliable information or knowledge to be able to understand a subject or situation and make appropriate judgments or decisions regarding it (informed citizens)
2. Based on accurate knowledge: based on an accurate knowledge and understanding of the situation or subject in question (an informed decision)
Let me first state that I won’t simply distribute left/liberal/democrats into the uninformed category and right/conservative/republicans into the informed group. That’s simply not accurate. There are informed liberals and informed democrats. They are informed, but they are (apparently) incapable of lucid thought due to any number of physical or emotional reasons, thus their informed, but incorrect positions. But at least they did some research, for that I can respect them.
No, the voters I am most concerned about are the uninformed of all persuasions. The uninformed have their reasons for being uninformed: I’m “too busy,” I don’t care, both candidates stink, my vote is insignificant, etc.
In MY perfect world, they wouldn’t be allowed to vote. But alas, the world is not perfect and these cretins’ vote will count just like yours and mine. They’ll vote based on name recognition, on skin color, on party affiliation, and an number of other totally illogical reasons to select perhaps the single most important person on the planet.
Our president, man or woman, black or white, will have an impact on every individual living or working in the United States in many ways. Some will be more affected than others, but the President and the policies that he/she embraces will affect us all. Is selecting that person not important? Isn’t that decision at least as important as where to buy a car, which flat screen TV to buy, or which college our children attend? Decisions that we may agonize over and research for days.
Why then, are so many voters averse to doing some research into the candidates in order to make an informed decision? Unfortunately, many uninformed voters believe themselves to be informed voters. Why, because their information comes entirely from the Mainstream Media (MSM) consisting of print media and network television. By now, I believe it to be an unassailable fact that the MSM in the United States is not objective; they lean liberal and always have. They choose not to publish (or otherwise hide) negative stories about liberals and democrats (John Edwards is the most recent example of that), and choose not to report positive news about the Iraq war or anything at all positive about President Bush and republicans. If the only news that a person hears or sees is tainted, how can that individual make a truly informed decision? That’s easy, they can’t.
And that, dear friend, is what worries me.
Results from two separate nationwide surveys of the general public provide some interesting information as to where voters got their information.
In both surveys, over 80 percent of respondents said that television and newspapers or magazines were personally important for gathering political information. Roughly 77 percent said that they thought political parties and candidates' campaigns were also important to them. Following relatively close behind these were community organizations, radio, and friends, family and coworkers.
Despite the fact that new avenues for political information have proliferated (i.e., the Internet), the resiliency of the mass media and community networks remains. Therefore, if the MSM doesn’t publicize an issue, the issue might as well not exist for a large portion of the population. Like Obama’s Global Poverty bill, for example.
It is disturbing to me that my informed vote for John McCain (albeit more against Obama than for McCain) will be offset by some uninformed clod whose only research consisted of seeing Obama sink a three-pointer on TV. Or is it just me?